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Building a home server. Please help, DC!
superboyac:
What is the deal with DAS? It sounds like something I can connect directly to my workstation, without any OS in between. If I want to avoid all the complications from my previous setups, this is where I would start. I understand now what NAS is, and I like SANS but even I can tell that's overkill for me at this point. So it sounds like DAS is what I want.
Here's where I'm confused...let's say I find some box that is a DAS that will connect to my workstation. I don't understand how it connects. Right now, I have an external box connected with two hard drives in it. The connection is esata. What's annoying is that each drive needs its own esata cable. I only have so many esata ports on my workstation, and they are currently full. How can I put 10 drives in an external box and connect it? I don't, nor will I ever, have 10 esata ports. Nor do I want it. Isn't there a way of doing this with just a cable or two?
I like DAS because it's directly attached, with no middle man OS or anything. I'll do all my file management through my main workstation anyway, so that's fine. As far as access from remote places, that's negligible at this point, and I've already figured out how to cleverly avoid those kinds of complications.
So my two questions right now is:
1) What is a box that is NOT a rackmount thing that will hold 10+ drives?
2) How do I connect this box to my PC using fewer cables than the number of drives (ideally one cable)?
I will absolutely not consider USB as the connection, nor will I consider firewire. I like esata very much. I'm hoping there's a better way with some kind of card that plugs into a PCI bus or something.
superboyac:
OK, I went back and reread this thread (ping-pong is exactly the correct term!). But that's how I work, sorry if it's frustrating. Believe it or not, all of this helps me a lot, and I appreciate everyone's assistance. Good will come of this, I promise!
So I went back to some of the previous links, and the product I'm really liking is this one:
This will be my box of drives. This box will be directly connected to my current workstation through these SAS cables (which I don't know much about right now). But it sounds perfect. I'll need to buy a SAS controller for that box, which are relatively expensive. I think this is the item that a few of you here have talked about to make sure I get a business grade quality, which I want to do. If you have any advice as to which manufacturer/model I should get, please let me know.
Next is the connection to my computer. My computer doesn't have any SAS stuff right now, so I'm guessing I need to buy a card or something for it. Any direction on suggested models would be appreciated. Same goes for any cables involved, in case I have to be careful about it.
So that gets mucho storage attached to my desktop. After that, I can experiment to my hearts content. I'll try doing some server stuff with VM's. But mostly I'll just use the storage directly from the desktop.
How is that? I can't really see much overkill in this one, and it's relatively cheap. The box and related items will run me about $1500, and then I'll just hunt around for good hard drive deals. The ones with 5 -year warranties are my fav.
cranioscopical:
Now I can work on the local Humane Society's website.-Stoic Joker (September 07, 2011, 05:01 PM)
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You must be barking mad! 8)
Good for you :Thmbsup:
lotusrootstarch:
Hi superboy, have u checked the pricing on 2TB SAS drives? I think that's one important step before you commit to buying that big box.
steeladept:
Hi superboy, have u checked the pricing on 2TB SAS drives? I think that's one important step before you commit to buying that big box.
-lotusrootstarch (September 08, 2011, 05:33 PM)
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Agreed, but one good point of this route is it IS backward compatible with SATA. I don't know how WELL it is compatible, but they will work with drives at least.
I will absolutely not consider USB as the connection, nor will I consider firewire. I like esata very much. I'm hoping there's a better way with some kind of card that plugs into a PCI bus or something.
-superboyac (September 08, 2011, 11:51 AM)
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I don't *think* anyone ever suggested USB or firewire. I wouldn't consider anything less than esata, I know I wouldn't suggest it unless it were *MAYBE* USB3.0, and not even likely then. As for DAS, I believe you are right in that being something very close to what you want. I believe most DAS solutions provide a proprietary card that connects their solution to the machine making it essentially appear as another internal drive controller. However, I have never really researched them or even know much about them so I can't guarantee that statement. Also, I don't know that any of them allow you to build your own out of your own box such as that.
If you really want to roll your own SAN, there is a way to do it. It will take a lot of time to get setup but you can do it in any form you desire. You may even be able to build a DAS on it, I don't know. It is using OpenFiler - a sourceforge project IIRC. Don't know how responsive it would be compared to one you can just buy, but it is always an option if you really want to become a storage expert :-\
On the other hand, a really nice (if somewhat expensive and otherwise potentially limited option) would be buying something like a Drobo. They have pretty much everything from a basic 2 disk NAS up to a 24 disk rack mount SAN. Many have multiple setup options. I think it is probably the easiest, most elegant storage solution for SMB's in general, but that elegance doesn't come cheap, and may not be the most efficient system (performance-wise) out there.
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